Florida Governor DeSantis withdraws from Republican primary
DeSantis, who came in second in the Iowa caucuses with 21 per cent, suspended his campaign on Sunday
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has announced that he is withdrawing from the Republican party's presidential primary race and endorsing Donald Trump as the party's nominee, leaving Indian-American politician Nikki Haley as the sole challenger against the former US president in the nomination contest.
DeSantis, who came in second in the Iowa caucuses with 21 per cent, suspended his campaign on Sunday.
He said that it was clear to him that a majority of Republican primary voters wanted to give Trump another chance.
Haley, 51, the former US ambassador to the UN, is the only Republican left in the Republican nomination race against Trump, who is seeking to enter the White House for a second term.
The 77-year-old former president, a White House occupant from January 2017 to January 2021, lost to incumbent Joe Biden in the 2020 elections.
Trump, so far the most popular Republican presidential candidate with a majority of the party members supporting him, as per all major polls, won the Iowa Caucus last week and is leading in the New Hampshire primaries, which is scheduled for Tuesday.
On Sunday, Trump congratulated DeSantis at his New Hampshire rally for running a "good" campaign.
With the withdrawal by DeSantis, who once was seen as a formidable challenge to Trump, it's now a race of two in the party between Trump and Haley.
Political pundits now say that the former president is set to be the Republican party's nominee and that the November 2024 presidential elections will be a repeat of the 2020 elections: Trump vs Biden.
A memo issued by the Trump Campaign also said that Haley needed to drop out of the race to save herself from humiliation.
